Sanskrit From Tamil Nadu: At Play In The Forests Of The ...subordinate but equally divine claims of...
Transcript of Sanskrit From Tamil Nadu: At Play In The Forests Of The ...subordinate but equally divine claims of...
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Sanskrit from Tamil Nadu:
At Play in the Forests of the
Lord: The Gopalavimshatiof Vedantadeshika
Steven P. Hopkins
Dark Forests in Tamil Land
Standing on top of the hill overlooking the temple and the gentle curve
of the blue Garuda River in the Tamil land, he thinks he can still hear
the happy noise of churning curds and the tinkling of anklets, the
slinking bangles and dances in the courtyards of the cowherd boys.
Through the air redolent of jasmine sound the long and lovely notes of
a flute, the shrieking and laughter of girls in a village tank, and the
sad, painful howling of the demonness Putana. Northern Mathura
and the dark mythical forests of Vrindavan are here, at this hal-lowed South Indian place, Tiruvahindrapuram, looped by areca and
coconut groves and fields of paddy: Krishna the god-king looks out
from the consecrated wide-open eyes of the standing image of Lord
Vishnu Devanayaka in his dim sanctum lit by ghee-lamps and heavy
with the odors of camphor and champak and kasturi.The play, the lila, is here, in this place, as it is in his heart, in
his mind on fire with divine love. Glorious visions, the play in
the forests of the Lord, are here, in the tropics of Tamil land.
He has spent long hours on this hill below the temple near the
Hayagriva shrine, meditating on Him, on Vishnu/Krishna, Mayon,
Trickster Lord of Jasmine, visualizing his mantras, mentally enter-
ing a yantra, a magical ritual field spread with red flowers: he had
mentally constructed his images of the Lord with Sarasvati on his
lap, felt his poetic and spiritual powers wax and dazzle. But one night
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something else happened, something more than ritual graces, or the in-
evitable results of polished, disciplined meditation and practice of Pancha-ratra rites.
He was touched. Inhabited.
Late one night, long after evening worship, while he stood before the
Devanayaka image in Tiruvahindrapuram temple, he was beheld by the god,
and so transported—to another world, to the Krishna-world within that image
of Vishnu. Held in thrall by that gaze, he saw, and he sang what he saw in
verses of exquisite Sanskrit.
Though all forms of Lord Vishnu are here in this temple image and unfold
in serried theological array before his willing singers, the Boar and the Warrior
Brahmin, Tortoise, Man-Lion, and Dwarf, Buddha and Rama—that evening
the poet Venkatesha was struck by the luminous beauty of the Lord’s most
sweet form as Krishna, the cowherd and king, handsome Kannan, lover of
gopis and child-prince of thieves from the forests of Vrindavan.
It is said that then he composed this poem, the Gopalavimshati, at Tir-uvahindrapuram. After praising the manifold forms and powers and exploits
of Vishnu as Devanayaka in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharashtri poems of great
power and theological sophistication, he also sung this praise of Vishnu as
Krishna come down from the north. This Krishna who had, from an early time,
already entered Tamil consciousness as the god of the jasmine landscape.
It is to this poem we will turn, after some words of introduction. We need
to explore who this Venkatesha is, and the significance of his praises of Krishna
in the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries in Tamil Nadu.
Vedantadeshika: A ‘‘Lion among Poets and Philosophers’’
The medieval South Indian saint-poet, theologian, and philosopher Venkata-
natha, or Venkatesha (c. 1268–1369) is most commonly known by his epithet
Vedantadeshika (‘‘preceptorof theVedanta’’), orDeshika.Vedantadeshika isone
of the most important brahmin acharyas (sectarian preceptors) of the Sri-
vaishnava community of South India, a particular Vaishnava community that
worships a personal god in the form of Lord Vishnu, one of the high gods of
Hindu tradition, along with his consort-goddess Sri, or Lakshmi.1 This com-
munity, which first developed around the tenth–eleventh centuries, claims the
Tamil poems of the alvars, especially those of the saint-poet Nammalvar, as
equal in status to the Sanskrit Veda (see chapter 7 here). Long after Deshika’s
death, he was claimed as the founding acharya of the Vatakalai, or ‘‘northern’’
school of Srivaishnavism, centered in the ancient holy city of Kanchipuram in
northern Tamil Nadu. Deshika’s early association with the northern city of
Kanchi would be a significant source of his broad learning, his polylinguism,
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and what might be termed his ‘‘cosmopolitanism.’’ For Kanchipuram, even
before the time of Deshika, had long been associated with multiple religious
communities—Buddhist, Jain, Hindu—and a decidedly cosmopolitan atmo-
sphere. The city had deep roots in transregional brahminical Sanskrit learning,
though it also fostered the development of regional cosmopolitan literatures,
most notably in Pali and Tamil.
Along with working in three major languages of his southern tradition,
Deshika was a master of many genres of philosophical prose and poetry. He
wrote long ornate religious poems (kavyas) in Sanskrit; a Sanskrit allegorical
drama (natyam); long religious lyric hymns (stotras and prabandhams) in San-
skrit, Maharashtri Prakrit, and Tamil; and commentaries and original works
of philosophy, theology, and logic in Sanskrit and in a hybrid combination of
the Sanskrit and Tamil languages called Manipravala (‘‘ jewels’’ and ‘‘coral’’).
Tradition ascribes to him the resounding epithets kavitarkikasimha, ‘‘a lion
amongpoets andphilosophers’’ (or ‘‘logicians’’), and sarvatantrasvatantra, ‘‘mas-
ter of all the arts and sciences.’’ Such epithets embody a certain spirit of cre-
ative cultural and linguistic synthesis. Deshika was master of all tantras (thisterm embraces multiple genres of texts); he was also both a kavi (master poet)
and a tarkika (logician/debater/philosopher). Tensions and complementarities
between poet and philosopher, the devotional lyric and theological prose, are
enacted within the same person.
Deshika’s devotional poetry combines in a dynamic way the local/regional
literary prestige of Tamil with the pan-regional aesthetic prestige and power of
Sanskrit (with Maharashtri as Middle Indo-Aryan literary spice). Deshika’s
writings expand the linguistic field of South Indian devotion beyond the nor-
mative claims either of Sanskrit or Tamil devotional texts. His language choices
embrace both the singularity of Sanskrit as divine ‘‘primordial tongue’’ and the
subordinate but equally divine claims of his mother tongue, Tamil.
Krishna in a World of Vishnu
In the Tamil religious literature of South India, Krishna rarely stands alone as
an object of devotion. In the poetry of saint-poets, from the earliest Tamil alvarsaround the eighth–tenth centuries to the Sanskrit stotras of acharyas from the
twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, Krishna comes, as it were, layered with
other forms (avataras, or incarnations) of Vishnu. As Vidya Dehejia noted long
ago, even in the tirumolis of the woman alvar Antal, one of the most passionate
poets of Krishna the Cowherd Lover, Krishna and Vishnu are ‘‘not sharply
differentiated.’’2 Krishna in Antal is a composite god who mirrors various
forms of Vishnu, whether it be the cosmic form of Ranganatha, asleep on
the ocean of milk between creations, Vamana, the Dwarf who spanned and
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measured the worlds, Narasimha the Man-Lion, the Boar, or Rama of the
Ramayana. There are also complex allusions to the ancient Tamil deity of the
‘‘jasmine landscape’’ (forest or pasture), the pavai ritual rites for rain and fer-
tility performed by young women in the month of Markali, and other refer-
ences that place this ‘‘Krishna’’ squarely within a specifically Tamil literary and
cultural landscape.3 Vasudha Narayanan, in The Way and the Goal, her study ofdevotion in early Srivaishnava tradition, makes this argument also for Peri-
yalvar, another well-known Tamil saint-poet of Krishna. She notes the oscil-
lation between Rama and Krishna in various verses of the Periyalvar Tirumoli,including a set of game songs wherein the poet volleys back and forth with
praises of each form of Vishnu, ending with a signature verse wherein both
forms, Rama and Krishna, are praised in one breath equally: ‘‘Nanda’s son and
Kakutstha.’’4
One of the most vivid and charming evocations of the child Krishna in
alvar Tamil literature and the later Sanskrit stotras of the acharyas is of the
child-god tied (impossibly!) to a mortar by a ‘‘tight-knotted string’’ (kanninun-ciruttampu). One of the most extended meditations on this image is in the
Atimanusha Stava of Kurattalvan, where the butter-thief of Yashoda’s house,
his hair smeared with the mud of grazing cows, is inseparable in the poet’s
vision from other avataras of Vishnu, for they are all present before the poet’seyes in the temple image of Vishnu (the archavataram), the supreme center of
gravity of most Tamil and Sanskrit poems in early Vaishnava literature.5
This kind of layering, where ‘‘Krishna’’ is but one form of Vishnu being
praised, even in verses dominated by images of the Cowherd Boy or the Moun-
tain Lifter, is also common in the Sanskrit stotras and Tamil prabandhams ofVedantadeshika. Verse 9 from his Tamil Meyviratamanmiyam (to Varadaraja
Perumal at Kanchi) is characteristic of this multiple layering: first we have Rama,
then the child-god Krishna, and then, in a funneling motion, an evocation of
place and specific temple archavataram (here Varadaraja Perumal at Kanchi):6
The hero
who felled in one cluster
the ten heads
of the well-armed demon
with an arrow
let loose
from the lovely graceful bow
fitted
for the exalted field
of battle;
our great father
who ate the sweet butter spread
on the surface
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of brimming jars fit
for churning:
he is here,
on Elephant Hill,
that cuts to the root
more cleanly
than his Discus—
that mere ornament—
the sins
of the devotees!
In the Sanskrit stotra to Devanayaka Swami at Tiruvahindrapuram, amid verses
filled with allusions to every avatara, there comes this verse that could have al-
most come out of Antal:7
O Lord of immortals,
mad with love,
my mind kisses your lower lip red as bimba fruit,
as the tender young shoots
from the coral tree
of paradise:
your lips enjoyed by young cowgirls,
by your flute
and by the prince
of conch-shells.
This being said, Deshika also wrote in Sanskrit some distinguished poetry
focused on Krishna and Krishna-lila alone. First, there is his long mahakavyaon the ‘‘life’’ of Krishna, the Yadavabhyudayam, or ‘‘Glory of the Yadavas,’’ and
second, his stotra composed at Tiruvahindrapuram for Devanayaka, the Go-palavimshati, a cycle of ‘‘twenty’’ verses (plus a phalashruti or concluding sig-
nature verse) for Gopala, the Cowherd God.
The Splendor of the Yadavas: A Kavya for Krishna
The Yadavabhyudayam is quite a virtuosic performance in the grand style of the
mahakavya. Its twenty-four sargas contain all requiste literary and cosmologi-
cal elements of a grand kavya as set down in Dandin’s Kavyadarsha, includingthe most elaborate, mind-numbing word-plays and pictures (chitra-kavya); vari-ous delights and diversions, along with ‘‘instruction’’ (upadesha); the goals of
dharma, artha, kama, and moksha; creation narratives; dynastic genealogies; and
the full arsenal of rasas (conventional aesthetic emotional states) and alam: karas
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(literary ornamentations/figures of speech).8 A luminous work on the model
of Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsha on the life of Rama and the Krishnakarnamritam, a
South Indian Krishna kavya that became so influential in later Bengali Vai-
shnavism,9 Deshika’s kavya on Krishna is an encyclopedic treatment of the
Krishna-katha (narrative) and lila (divine ‘‘play’’). The poem mingles religious
and ‘‘secular’’ forms of love and separation, the erotic (shringara), the heroic (vira),and awesome (adbhuta) forms of aesthetic experience (rasa), the royal and pas-
toral forms of narrative, and charm and gravity in ways distinctly suited to this
polymorphous child-cowherd-lover-god-king.
After a first sarga of praise-verses (stotras), Deshika depicts, in the me-
ticulous word-pictures of kavya style, the remarkable progress of Devaki’s
pregnancy, with descriptions of twilight (samdhya), the moon, and the cries of
chakravaka birds. The third and forth sargas speak, respectively, of Krishna’scoming to Gokula, his substitution for the girl-child Maya, and the destruc-
tion of various demons and pests sent to kill him, such as Putana, the ‘‘false
mother’’ demoness (rakshasi) and the great naga Kaliya. Sarga 5 is an exquisite
description of the seasons (ritumala), replete with descriptions of the paddy
harvest, red indragopa bugs, dark monsoon clouds, dark hills, rain and rushing
rivers in autumn, and intoxicated peahens. Sarga 6 is a chitra-kavya, filled with
word-pictures, puns, and all manner of verbal conceits, including the visual-
ization of yantras, or ritual devices for meditation. The seventh sarga describes
Krishna lifting up Govardhan Hill—with expansive natural description—and
the eighth contains the famous ras-lila, Krishna’s circle-dance with the gopis,and their subsequent ‘‘watersports’’ (jalakrida). The latter sarga contains many
technical references to dance and to music, consonant with the encyclopedic
spirit of the mahakavya. Later sargas deal with various seminal events, such as
Krishna’s return to Mathura after the message of Akrura; his conquering of
Kamsa; his kingship in Dvaraka and his marriage to Rukmini; the killing of
Narakasura and his marriage to the sixteen thousand women; the theft of the
parijata from Indra’s realm and his return by ‘‘aerial car’’ over a dizzying land-
scape; a series of vivid ‘‘waking verses’’ in the erotic mode (tiruppalliyelucci inTamil), and a remarkable digvijaya, or royal progress through his lands that
includes a virtual social and political map of the North. Next comes a sum-
mary of the Mahabharata war, and finally, in sarga 24, a auspicious descrip-
tion of Krishna with his innumerable wives at home in Dvaraka, stopping
short before his legendary ignominious death at the hands of a hunter in the
epic Mahabharata account.
The Yadava kavya ends, unlike the Mahabharata, with auspicious images
of Krishna as loving householder and husband; it also qualifies his worldly
pleasures with the chastening warning that, while Krishna seems to be one
whose mind is bent on sense-pleasures (sambhoge ca pravanamanasah), he is
(at the same time) ‘‘perpetually’’ celibate (brahmacharyam). This is no worldly
story of love, loss, and recovery: Dvaraka is not only some North Indian
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kingdom but is the ‘‘entire universe’’ (sarvalokam). One who knows this will
ford the unfordable river of Maya, the splendid ‘‘illusion’’ of samsara.10
This tension between ascetic and erotic modes of discourse is one that
runs through all of the Krishna literature. Yet in Deshika’s kavya itself, as in
the Bhagavata Purana and in various other Sanskrit or vernacular devotional
texts, it is finally the sensuous vigor of the verses that belies any easy re-
duction of the Krishna-lila to some intellectualized and normative ascetic form
of bhakti, or some kind of purely spiritual detachment, untethered from eros: in
Krishna, as with the god Shiva, the erotic and ascetic dimensions are of course
distinct, but inseparable; they interanimate, informing and, in many ways,
defining each other.
The following verse from the last sarga of the Yadavabhyudaya is similar in
vocabulary and syntactic structure to one of the most famous descriptions of
loving embrace in Sanskrit literature, the great eighth-century playwright and
poet Bhavabhuti’s verse on Rama and Sita’s loving ‘‘close embrace’’ that takes
place as the night watches pass by ‘‘unnoticed,’’ a verse that knits together the
religious and the human language of love. Here we are with Krishna in his
‘‘inner apartments.’’11
The fierce chill of winter air
unchecked
even by little clay pots
with their red eyes
of coal
that burned between their heavy breasts
was suddenly
cut off
by the heat of the Lord’s
passionate
close
embrace.
A Praise-Poem for Krishna as ‘‘Lord of Gods’’
The Yadavabhyudayam itself, of course, is far too long to translate for a volume
such as this. Even selections from this sprawling work would give little sense
of its cumulative power and richly configured world, something only experi-
enced in a full reading, and best left for a separate study, which would include
detailed treatment of the influential commentary of the Shaiva philosopher-
poet Appaya Dikshita.12 What follows is a complete translation, with detailed
thematic, grammatical, and philological notes, of Deshika’s other Sanskrit
poem for Krishna, the Gopalavimshati.
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The Gopalavimshati is a praise-poem (stotra) and not a kavya. It is said to
have been composed by Deshika for Vishnu as Devanayaka, or ‘‘Lord of Gods,’’
at Tiruvahindrapuram, the ‘‘town of the Serpent King,’’ near the coastal town
of Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu. This stotra has a rich liturgical history at Deva-
nayaka Swami Temple, which includes its use as a marriage hymn and as a
blessing over food offered to the temple image (the tadiyaradhanams). OnKrishna Jayanti, the image (murti; archa) of Devanayaka is taken in procession
to the chanting of this hymn. Deshika composed for Devanayaka other very
important Sanskrit stotras, Tamil prabandhams, and one long Maharashtri Pra-
krit stotra, poems I have analyzed in some detail elsewhere.13 They are dis-
tinctive in their passionate devotion to this particular form of Vishnu and for
their use of the first person and various erotic motifs from Sanskrit literature
and akam conventions of classical love poetry in ancient Tamil. It thus comes
as no surprise that Deshika identified this particularly beloved form of Vishnu
as Gopala, the sensually evocative and emotionally accessible cowherd youth
and god of the Vrindavan pastorale.
This comparatively short stotra gives the reader a very vivid sense of Krishnain the Tamil Land through one of South India’s most gifted medieval saint-
poets. It includes set descriptions and ‘‘enjoyments’’ of the body of Krishna that
are meant to inspire devotional feeling (bhava) in the hearer: we move from the
cosmological, in the evocation of the birth date, to ritual forms of meditation,
the shining yantra of many colors: soon we are at the heart of the emotional
imaginaire of Vrindavan pastorale, where the transcendent Brahman, incon-ceivable, unknowable, formless Being, has become a tiny, cranky baby, a tod-
dler butter thief and trickster, a dancer in the courtyard, a flute-playing cow-
herd, a merciless killer of demons, a handsome lover who plays at concealing
and revealing his divine power. Like so many poets in South Indian bhaktitradition from the earliest period, Deshika delights in juxtaposing the Lord’s
awesome extremes: the big and the little, child and primal being, unknown god
and intimate friend and lover, extremes that meet in this god of love, and in love(kami).
I hope, in the translation that follows, to bring into contemporary Ameri-
can English verse something of the energies, the audacity, and literary elegance
of the original Sanskrit.14 (The text is taken from the 1966 Sri Tecikastotramala,Sanskrit text with Tamil commentary, by Sri Ramatecikacaryar.)15
1
His shining body lights up the woods
of Vrindavan;
cherished lover of the simple
cowherd girls,16
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he was born on Jayanti
when Rohini touches,
on the eighth day,
the waning moon
in Avani:17
this luminous power18
that wears Vaijayanti,
the long garland of victory,
I praise Him!19
2
We see him
as he fills with delight,
on his very own lap,
Sarasvati
goddess of speech;20
as he raises to his lotus lips
the royal conch shell,
Panchajanya.
Seated firm
in a lotus flower
set in the center
of a shining yantra of many colors,21
praise him,
great monarch of cowherds!22
3
His lower lip trembles
as he begins
to cry—
the air fills
with the fragrance
of Veda;
at one moment
he is all sweet smiles,
then
suddenly
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his eyes
fill with tears:23
I know him,
who took on the tiny infant body
of a cowherd24
who sucked the milk
and the very life-breath25
from the false mother Putana:
I know this Gopala,
the Cowherd King,
as Most High
Supreme Being!26
4
May I see it with my own eyes:
first,
the threshing ring
of jeweled anklets—27
the raised leg,
bent,
one foot,
turning in the air!
—the other firm
on the floor—
then the throbbing
clipped
rhythms
to the thwacking ruckus
of churning
curds!28
—this sweet butter dance of the Lord
in Nanda’s
house.
5
Plunging his little hand deep into the big jar,
he steals sweet
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new butter
fresh from the churning:29
then, seeing his mother come running,
burning with anger,
a rope
in her hand,
he neither flees nor stands still
but trembling,
just a little,30
and squinting,
quickly closes
his eyes:
Protector of the World,
clever
false
cowboy,31
may He protect us!
6
He is stung by sharp sidelong glances
of the Braj girls;
treasure of Mathura,
sweetest enjoyment
for those who love
no other.
I sing of that inconceivable supreme Brahman32
—who can know it?
whom we see
suckling at the breasts of Vasudeva’s wife,
playing in the lovely body
of this charming
young boy.
7
He twists his neck backward
out of fear,
then the bud
of his pouting lower lip
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blooms
into a smile:
I recall in silence33
that young prince
who drags the big mortar
through the garden
and tearing the trees from their roots
frees
the two spirits.
8
I see him here always
before my eyes.34
This lovely boy
whom even the highest wisdom
of the Veda
seeks to have
by its side:
the two Arjuna trees
were witness
to his childish pranks
and the Yamuna
the long days
of his youth.35
9
You are the shortest path
to liberation,
a dark monsoon cloud
that hangs over the forest
raining
joy and wealth.36
A bamboo flute thrills at the touch
of your ruddy
lower lip:37
I love you
and worship you,38
root cause of creation,
pure compassion
in the body
of a man.39
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10
We must honor him
with unblinking eyes:
eternally youthful,40
his curly locks of black hair
vie in battle
with the black eyes
of peacock feathers:
may this luminous beauty
whose intensity
maddens my senses41
be always
present
in my mind!
11
The sweet reed flute calls them,
sending every cowherd girl
it touches
with its music
into ecstasies;42
the flood of his glancing
eyes,
red lilies
in the river of his mercy,
cooled by his flawless
smile:43
may He protect me.
12
The lovely reed flute
that presses
against his lower lip;
the garland of peacock feathers
that adorn his crown;
a darkness luminous
as shards of cool
blue
sapphire:44
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may these glorious visions45
appear
before my eyes
at my journey’s
end.
13
Each and every hour—
waking or sleeping—46
I gaze on the beauty
of this young man
with the Lady Lakshmi on his chest
who is loved
by the long-limbed girls
of Braj—
his beauty47
far beyond the scope
of my singing!48
14
What artist has painted this young man
in my heart49
who wears in his hair
the lovely feathers
of a peacock
who is the sun
to the lotus faces
of the cowherd girls
of Braj
sick with love.50
15
With head bowed low
hands pressed together
in prayer
I salute
this luminous darkness
shining black as kohl
under women’s eyes:51
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he plays a lovely flute
that breathes
in tune52
with the lisping bangles
of the cowherd girls
crazy
in love.
16
The cowherd girls’ hands
clap the beats
cooled by the touch of their slinking,
loose
bangles53
as they teach the flute
the graceful lalitadance.
Hail to that flute
that shares sweet nectar
from the lips
of Vishnu,
red as coral,
who took the form
of a cowherd boy
to protect
the whole world!
17
On his ears hang rings
of langali flowers;54
his dark hair shines
with feathers
of a peacock
and thick red bandhujivablossoms;55
on his chest,
the long
necklace of yellow
gunja-beads:56
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praise him,
adorned
in so many ways,
some strange kind of Trickster57
who steals
the youth
of the cowherd
girls. 58
18
He holds the playful shepherd’s crook
in the tender sprout
of his right hand;
his other hand
fondles
the slender
shoulders
of the lady
who trills at his touch—
the hairs on her body
shining
stand erect.59
Lovely, dark as the monsoon cloud,
his flute
tucked into the folds
of his yellow
waist-cloth,
and his hair shimmering
with garlands
of gunja-beads,
praise Him,
tender lover of the gopis.60
19
He gazes at his lover,
her eyes
half-
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closed
in ecstasy,
whom he embraced
from behind—
his hands tightly
circling
the curve of her waist—
as she struck a pose
to shoot
the sweet water.61
In one hand
he grasps his own
long syringe,62
and with the other
he cinches
tight
his dress
for water-sports:63
cherished lover of simple cowherd girls,64
good life-giving
medicine
for the devotees,65
may he protect us!
20
After stealing the cowherd girls’ dresses
as they lay
strewn along the banks
of the Yamuna,
bright river-daughter of the Sun,66
smiling playfully,67
he sat in the branches
of a lovely Kunda tree.
And when,
burning with shame,
they pleaded
for their clothes,
he commanded they come
one by one
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out of the water,
their lotus hands raised high
over their
heads
in prayer:
Praise this fabulous lover,
this god
in love!68
21
Those who study with one-pointed mind
this praise-poem
composed by
Venkatesha
will see
before their very eyes
this inconceivable
unknowable god69
who is so dear to young girls,
deft connoisseur
of the holy
reed
flute!70
notes
1. See my full-length study of Vedantadeshika, Singing the Body of God: The Hymnsof Vedantadesika in Their South Indian Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press,
2002), and my anthology of translations, An Ornament for Jewels: Poems for the Lordof Gods by Vedantadesika (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
2. See Vidya Dehejia, Antal and Her Path of Love: Poems of a Woman Saint fromSouth India (New York: State University of New York Press, 1990), 14–15.
3. For an elaborate argument for a specifically southern Tamil ‘‘Krishnaism’’
and its subsequent influence in the Bhagavata Purana and northern Krishna devo-
tion, see Friedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti: The Early History of Krsna Devotion in SouthIndia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), especially pt. 4, ‘‘Mayon Mysticism:
The Alvars.’’
4. See Vasudha Narayanan, The Way and the Goal: Expressions of Devotion in EarlySri Vaisnava Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Vaishnava Studies, 1987), 25–
26. Narayanan goes on to argue the importance of the figure of Rama in Alvar devotion.
5. See Narayanan, The Way and the Goal, 106–112. See also, for this kind of
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layering, where images of Rama, Krishna, and other avataras intermingle, the great
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Tamil praise-poem of Tiruppanalvar, the Amalanatipiran, translated in my study
of Deshika, Singing the Body of God, 141–144.6. See full translation of poem and discussion in my Singing the Body of God, 93–
94. His other Tamil prabandhams, such as Mummanikkovai and Navamanimalai, arestrewn with references to Krishna, mingled with other avataras, all present in his
experience of the specific temple image being praised. See ‘‘The Fruits of Mukunda’s
Mercy,’’ chap. 4 in Singing the Body of God.7. From Devanayakapanchashat 27, cited in Singing the Body of God, 208–209.8. See discussion in A. K. Warder, Indian Kavya Literature (1972; reprint, Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1989), 1:1–53.
9. See Francis Wilson, The Love of Krishna: The Krsnakarnamrta of LilasukaBilvamangala (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), for a translation
and critical study of this remarkable devotional text, so close in spirit and style to
Deshika.
10. Yadavabhyudayam 24:93. For verses of the Yadavabhyudayam see Shri-matvedantadeshikagranthamala, edited by K. P. B. Annankaracariyar and Shri Sam-
patkumaracaryasvamin, 3 vols. (Kanchi: 1940–58), the collected Sanskrit works of
Deshika without commentary. See also text of sargas 9–12, with the Sanskrit com-
mentary of Appaya Dikshita: Yadavabhyudaya by Sriman Vedanta Desika (Sri Rangam:
Sri Vani Vilas Press, 1924), and cantos 13–18: Yadavabhyudayam, with Apayya Dik-
shita’s commentary, edited by Vidvan T. T. Srinivasa Gopalachar (Mysore: Govern-
ment Oriental Library, 1944). See also Yadavabhyudayam: A Kavya on the Life of LordKrishna, edited with Sanskrit text and translation of first seven cantos by K. S. Krishna
Thathachariar (Madras: Vedanta Desika Research Society, 1976), which includes eight
essays by various scholars. For a brief discussion of the poem in relation to Deshika’s
life narrative, see my Singing the Body of God, 66–67.11. Yadavabhyudayam 24:38. The phrase ‘‘passionate close embrace’’ (avir-
alaparirambhalambhaniyaih) is close to a phrase in Bhavabhuti’s verse that describes
Rama and Sita’s arms as ‘‘busy in close embrace’’ (ashithilaparirambha). For a dis-
cussion on the Shrivaishnava use of Bhavabhuti’s love lyric in commentaries on
Deshika’s stotras, see my Singing the Body of God, 162–163.12. I plan some day to tackle just such a study.
13. See the introduction to my Singing the Body of God, and especially chaps. 4
and 7, 115–134 and 199–231. See also my An Ornament for Jewels (Oxford, forthcom-
ing), which will include full translations of the Devanayaka stotras and prabhandams,along with the Gopalavimshati.
14. For a detailed account of my method of translation, including my use of
visual spacing of phrases and individual words on the page, see the discussion in my
Singing the Body of God, 15–21.15. (1966; reprint, Cennai: Lifco, 1982), 637–657.
16. ‘‘Cherished lover of simple cowherd girls‘‘ Vallavijanavallabham, a phrase
with a certain alliterative charm. This phrase is also said to point to Krishna’s
saushilya, or ‘‘gracious condescension.’’17. Jayantisambhavam: I have expanded this phrase for clarity and detail, fol-
lowing the commentators. ‘‘Jayanti’’ is an astrological conjunction that can be de-
scribed with some poetic grace. Ramatecikacharyar’s Tamil gloss describes Jayanti as
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the time when ‘‘the constellation Rohini is united with the eighth day of the dark of
the moon in the month of Simha Shravana, or Avani:’’ jayanti enpatu simha cravana(avani) mattatil kirushnapakshattu ashtamiyutan cerukinra rohini nakshtra matum. This
descriptive epithet is said to refer to Krishna’s saulabhyam, or ‘‘easy accessibility.’’
18. ‘‘Luminous power’’ and ‘‘shining body’’ both translate the rich word dhama,meaning ‘‘majesty,’’ ‘‘glory,’’ ‘‘luminary,’’ ‘‘effulgence,’’ ‘‘power.’’ I follow commenta-
tors in identifying this luminous power with the beautiful body of the Lord Krishna
that ‘‘moves about’’ or ‘‘wanders’’ in Vrindavan, implied in the phrase vrindava-nacharam in the first pada of the verse. This can also imply the ‘‘feet’’ of the Lord. In
Ramatecikacharyar’s Tamil gloss, dhama is a kind of jyoti, or radiant light, identifiedwith Lord Krishna’s ‘‘lovely body’’ (vativu): Kannapiranenapatum oru coti vativai tolu-kinren (‘‘I adore/worship the lovely form/body, a radiant light that is called Lord
Krishna’’). The mention of Vrindavan here is said to index Krishna’s vatsalyam,
‘‘tender loving affection [of a cow for her calf ].’’
19. The image of Krishna as wearing the ‘‘victory’’ garland indexes his sva-mitvam, his ‘‘independent mastery’’ or ‘‘supreme lordship.’’ The entire verse, in its
simple compass, is said to embrace various attributes of Krishna, from the tender
love of a mother or a lover, and easy accessibility, to supreme lordship of the universe.
The verse is also analyzed by commentators to include three major rasas (aesthetic‘‘flavors’’ or experience) that are important to Krishna’s ‘‘play’’ in the world: shringara,the ‘‘erotic’’ (in the allusion to gopis); vira, the ‘‘heroic,’’ indicated by the vaijayantigarland; and adbhuta, or ‘‘wonder,’’ indexed by his ‘‘moving about’’ in the forests,
where, as we will see in the body of the stotra, he performs a variety of awesome feats
of divine power. See Appayya Dikshita’s commentary on this verse where it also
appears as the first verse of Deshika’s Yadavabhyudayam.
20. The identification of Deshika himself with vach, speech (glossed here and in
the commentaries as Sarasvati), who ‘‘delights’’ (Tamil gloss mukil) or ‘‘relishes’’ be-ing on the very lap of the Lord, is a common one in praise-verses of the poet, and
points to his eloquence and mastery of language.
21. Varnatrikonaruchire varapundarike.22. This verse has the flavor of a visualization used in ritual meditation of the
Lord and his powers.
23. This descending, broken episodic phrase translates the first four padas of theverse, two long, elegant, and alliterative compounds in Sanskrit:
Amnayagandhiruditaspuritagharoshtham asravilekshanamanukshanamandahasyam.
24. Gopaladimbhavapusham.25. Pranastanandhayam.26. Param pumamsam, glossed as the more common epithet parama purusha, or
‘‘Supreme Person,’’ a phrase that hearkens back to the Upanishads and the BhagavadGita. This of course stresses the wonder of Krishna’s play, which brings together
opposing forms of the big and the little, the earthly and the cosmic, the awesome and
powerful and the tiny and vulnerable: Krishna is no less than the Supreme Person
in the tiny body of an infant who cries and fusses and suckles, but when he breathes,
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one smells the fragrance of Vedas, and when the breasts he happens to suckle are
those of the demon Putana, he kills without mercy.
27. Anibhritabharanam: ‘‘ornaments/jewels that tremble/move/stir.’’ Tamil
gloss: anikal achaiyapperratay. Because the dancing feet are being described, I take this
reference to mean the anklets on the feet: see subsequent verses describing the rat-
tling of jewels in anklets.
28. Dadhna nimithamukharena nibadhatalam: a vivid, vigorous phrase, literally:
‘‘unrestrained/vigorous rhythms with noisy/talkative [’mouthy’] churning of curds.’’ I
try in my translation to capture the clever use in this phrase of mukharena (noisy/
talkative, ‘‘mouthy’’) with an aural/audial and rather fanciful phrase ‘‘thwacking
ruckus.’’
29. In the loping mandakranta meter: hartum kumbhe vinihitakarah svaduhaiyangavinam.
30. Ishat pracalitapado napagacchan na tishthan: ‘‘neither fleeing nor standing
still, trembling just a little.’’ The sense of the verse is that this god-child pretends to
be frightened, or perhaps more accurately, ‘‘plays’’ (lila) at being frightened.
31. Mithyagopah. Verses 3, 4 and 5 are all in the long-lined, loping, rhythmic
mandakranta meter, suitable to its subject: the dancing and pranks of the child
Krishna. I have tried, in my translation, mostly visually on the page, to reproduce this
loping, shifting rhythm, in the spacing of broken words and phrases. See also
verses 17–20.
32. Tat kimapi brahma: literally, ‘‘that I-don’t-know-what-kind of Brahman,’’ adeceptively short phrase that appears in other stotras of Deshika, where it is used to
evoke the unknowable, inconceivable, and ‘‘transcendent’’ ultimate reality of the Upa-
nishads. The power of this verse, of course, lies in Deshika’s juxtaposition of this
phrase with the erotic and maternal affective dimensions of this ‘‘lovable’’ Brahman.33. Smarami, ‘‘I remember, visualize’’; ‘‘I meditate on’’—a verb commonly
used in texts describing devotional meditations/visualizations of the qualities of a god
(or of the Buddha in the Buddhist context). To ‘‘remember’’ here is to evoke the
meditative presence, the presentational reality, of the god or Buddha.
34. Nishamayami nityam.35. Yamalarjunadrishtabalakelim yamunasakshikayauvanam yuvanam.36. ‘‘Joy and wealth,’’ sampadam.
37. The original phrase contains, like so much of Deshika’s Sanskrit, some lovely
music: arunadharasabhilashavamsham.38. Bhajami.39. Karunam karanamanushim.40. Ajahadyauvanam.41. Karanonmadakavibhramam maho.42. ‘‘Sweet reed flute,’’ manojnavamshanalah. Tamil gloss: iniya kulalin. ‘‘Ecsta-
sies,’’ vimoha (Tamil mayakkam).
43. ‘‘Flood,’’ rasa, water.44. Harinilashilavibhanganilah.45. ‘‘Glorious visions’’: pratibhah, ‘‘images,’’ ‘‘appearances.’’
46. Akhilan . . . kalan: ‘‘at every moment/time/waking hour.’’
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47. ‘‘Beauty’’: abhirupyam. Salvation and aesthetic beauty are deeply twined
together in the poetics of Deshika’s stotras. See my Singing the Body of God, 101–109,130–133, 195–197, 238–239.
48. Abhilapakramaduram: ‘‘far beyond the scope of my words/language/
expression.’’
49. Hridi . . . likhitah kena mamaisha shilpina. ‘‘young man,’’ literally ‘‘youth,’’
yuva, a common word used, and played upon, in these verses.
50. Madanatura.51. Anjanam; ‘‘collyrium,/eye-black,’’ often compared to the shiny-blue-black
body of Vishnu/Krishna in Deshika’s stotras.52. ‘‘Breathes in tune. ‘‘ Literally, bhashita, which ‘‘speaks’’ in unison with (the
bangles). The stanza plays with the sounds of the consonant cluster anj- in anjali,the greeting/salute with hands pressed; manju, lovely, charming; and anjanam, kohl,
to mime the threshing sound of the jeweled anklets.
53. Again, my English translation seeks to match the sounds of the original, here
shithilavalayashinja, to mime the ‘‘slinking’’ sound of loose bangles on the dancing
arms. The verse is in the long-lined, finely detailed musical malini meter.
54. Langali: flowers from the sheaves of the coconut palm. Tamil: tennampalai.55. Bandhujiva: red hibiscus.
56. Gunja-beads: Tamil: kunrimani.57. Kitavah ko’pi.58. Verses 17–20 are composed in the rhythmic mandakrantameter, which slows
the reader’s eye and ear, suitable for these detailed ‘‘thick’’ descriptions of Krishna.
See also verse 5 and note 31.
59. Pulakaruchire: the shoulder of the lady ‘‘shines with horripilation.’’ The lady/
goddess here is identified in the commentaries as Nappinnai, Vishnu/Krishna’s
Tamil wife/lover.
60. Gopakanyabhujangah.61. Pratyalida-posture: the left foot forward, right backward, an attitude in ar-
chery. The context here is that she is making ready to shoot colored water from her
‘‘syringe’’ in the ‘‘water sports’’ of the Holi festival when people throw colors at
one another.
62. ‘‘Long syringe’’: bhastrayantra: vessel, pouch (with bellows), or ‘‘syringe’’
filled with colored water.
63. Varikrida.64. Vallavivallabho. See verse 1.
65. Bhaktajivatuh.66. Yamuna’s epithet has a lovely musicality in the original: dinakar-
asutasamnidhau.67. Lilasmero.68. Kami kashchit: ‘‘what kind of (mysterious, unfathomable) lover/one in
love.’’ Kami here implies Krishna’s twofold dimension as beloved, the object of love,
and one who is also in love.
69. Daivatam kimapi.70. Divyavenurasikam.
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